The Wish and the word as the BBEG in crazytown.

RedstoneOrc · Post by **RedstoneOrc** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 6:45 pm

So I'm going to MC a game that starts at level 15 with the Word as the big bad at level 18. This game is going to be crazy broken like divine minion cheese and nano bots. I need some good ideas about encounters to challenge them on the way there is going to be plenty of fights fof them to roflstomp, but I want a few almost wins on my side. The first big fight is going to be against 6 optimized fighters for them to kill, but between that and the boss fight i got nothing and would like a spring board to bounce ideas off of.

also the Word is going to be king of dispater's tower.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 6:57 pm

Without some range of nerfs, bans and clampdowns, levels above about 12 get so crazy that literally nothing can be level appropriate.

However, here's a thread full of level 15 characters suitable for use in a Tomes game: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52 ... highlight=

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 10:26 pm

You have no idea how happy it makes me that you linked that. Even as I read "thread full of level 15 characters suitable for use in a Tomes game" I thought "Didn't I do that with Disgaeagame?"

I probably don't need to go and add the extras from Disgaea D2 to it.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:21 pm

My suggestion was gonna be "Go through stuff like Disgaeagame and PRC threads, pick out shit that sounds cool, make characters."

But someone sorta beat me to it.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:14 am

Can someone remind me what the Divine Minion and the Nanobots are?

Anyway, some ideas might be things that basically serve as "Make sure you are this tall" gates. If you have a dozen closet trolls leap out, then anybody who is at ground level and also corporeal is going to learn a great lesson. Even "slightly ranged" along the lines of Truth, Justice and The American Way* could do that - if you fall into their danger zone, it will hurt unless you happen to have big enough numbers or the right immunities. If you are outside their area, then you automatically win the fight and go "Yo, we're high level dawg".

Similarly, crap like "twenty shadows", where either the PCs obliterate them at once and are not vulnerable to incorporeal foes, or they get strength-drained to death on the spot and learn a valuable lesson.

*Truth, Justice and The American Way are a trio of ogres. They aren't actually that thematic to their names, but it's a group of three so that's what you get. Each is nominally CR 15, with a combined weight of "totally CR 18, never mind that any real party of level 18 won't notice their feeble efforts".

Truth: Ogre Fighter 2 Warhulk 10 with a Huge Adamantine Heavy Flail
Noteworthy feats should include Leap Attack, Monkey Grip and Martial Study (Claw at the Moon). Alternatively, sub in proper Tome feats.

Justice: Ogre Fighter 4 Hulking Hurler 3 Master Thrower 5 with a load of Colossal Adamantine Scythes. Probably magical.
Go for feats like Imp. Crit (Scythes) and everything that lets you throw extra stuff. Or use proper Tome feats.

The American Way: basically identical to Justice, except throwing bombs - Colossal flasks of Alchemist Fire. Bullshit feats like Mad Alchemist can add to this, but you know the deal by now.

So the throwers stand behind the basher. The basher has a big area of "try to hit everyone at once and knock them around", the other two throw crap with small range increments, but critsplosions and knockdown.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:23 am

RedstoneOrc · Post by **RedstoneOrc** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:46 pm

ubernoob wrote:
Koumei wrote:Can someone remind me what the Divine Minion and the Nanobots are?
Divine Minion is a method of getting to Pun Pun. Nanobots is a method of getting to Pun Pun that takes slightly fewer levels. They're both "I have +Infinity everything, game over, go home" theoretical exercises.

How are you so wrong on nanobots? They are just a way to get an arbitrary numberto hit and AC, maybe some blockers or skill checks. But they're just animate object a bunch of times how does that get to be pun pun? Divine minion can do it, but we aren't doing the stupid infinity shuffle for a game.

@ Josh and Koumei thanks for the builds but their to hit seems low for level 15, so im gonna try to jack that up.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:18 pm

Iirc the divine minion is a reference to SKR's mulhorandi divine minion, an LA+1/LA+2 template that gives outsider type, fear immunity, and limited wildshape as a free action. It's one of my favorite examples of why you shouldn't let SKR write content.

Nanobots is a rules exploit where you control hundreds of tiny/fine creatures and buff their attacks/skills so they can use aid another and give you bonuses in the realm of +100. It's usually done with animated objects and the exemplar class, and it has such a high level requirement that you're not likely to see it anywhere outside of theoretical 20-level builds.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:17 pm

Everything about Pun Pun irks me, because it doesn't actually work. It's all slight of hand, all the way down. The divine minion build is based on using Fast Wildshape Template Ability to "qualify" for a prestige class that requires Wildshape Class Feature. Those aren't quite the same thing, so if you're trying to make a RAW argument, you lose automatically.

Everything about Pun Pun builds is like that. None of it actually pans out. The Sarrukh doesn't actually give you divine ranks or even Golem magic immunity. It just... doesn't do that. That's not what the power means, but very crucially that's not even what it says.

Pun Pun represents the point at which the "charop community" completely lost touch with reality. They were no longer finding powerful things to use in games or even finding obscure theoretical builds that highlighted flaws in the system - they were just telling each other stories about how awesome combos they could make if the rules said different things than what they actually said.

-Username17

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:35 am

FrankTrollman wrote:The Sarrukh doesn't actually give you divine ranks or even Golem magic immunity. It just... doesn't do that. That's not what the power means, but very crucially that's not even what it says.

"A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it."

Golem magic immunity is a plain old extraordinary ability, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to grant it. Sure you can't give Divine Ranks, but other Ex, Su, and Sp abilities are all fair game.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:43 am

Lokathor wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The Sarrukh doesn't actually give you divine ranks or even Golem magic immunity. It just... doesn't do that. That's not what the power means, but very crucially that's not even what it says.
"A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it."

Golem magic immunity is a plain old extraordinary ability, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to grant it. Sure you can't give Divine Ranks, but other Ex, Su, and Sp abilities are all fair game.

There are fucking examples of how it works on the next fucking page. It doesn't specifically say you can't grant Golem Magic Immunity, but it doesn't say you can either. There are no caveats, exclusions, or inclusions. All there is is a list of examples of how it works. Which means that if you want to grab at-will Gate or Magic Immunity or something, all you have to do is make a convincing argument that those abilities are in line with the examples of giving a +2 bonus to climb or whatever.

It's nothing but wishful thinking. A variable wasn't defined terribly well and some assholes claimed that they could put infinity in because it didn't say they couldn't. It's exactly like the argument that because the longsword in the PHB doesn't say how many Red Dragons you can summon with it as a free action that you are free to assume the number is seven.

-Username17

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:43 am

Probably says something about rules complexity and how few people understand even a small part of what 3.5 really says, even with just the core spells. I'm pretty sure no one over at Paizo does, but maybe I'm just projecting.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:18 am

None of the examples are supernatural or spell-like abilities though, they're all just "physical change" type of things. Maybe you could argue that they're extraordinary, but even so why would Manipulate Form say you can give supernatural and spell-like abilities and then also suddenly limit you to things that are like the examples given, none of which are supernatural or spell-like? That doesn't make much sense. I mean, Manipulate Form is poorly written trash that should not be used, but it seems plain enough that you're not restricted to exactly just the examples, since extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like are all well defined game terms. When a class has proficiency with all "simple weapons" we don't make them list out that they specifically mean the club and the sling and the dagger and all that because "simple weapons" is a game term we already know.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:54 am

Lokathor wrote:None of the examples are supernatural or spell-like abilities though, they're all just "physical change" type of things. Maybe you could argue that they're extraordinary, but even so why would Manipulate Form say you can give supernatural and spell-like abilities and then also suddenly limit you to things that are like the examples given, none of which are supernatural or spell-like? That doesn't make much sense. I mean, Manipulate Form is poorly written trash that should not be used, but it seems plain enough that you're not restricted to exactly just the examples, since extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like are all well defined game terms. When a class has proficiency with all "simple weapons" we don't make them list out that they specifically mean the club and the sling and the dagger and all that because "simple weapons" is a game term we already know.

This is a frankly ridiculous argument. First of all, slime secretion that makes you harder to grapple could plausibly be supernatural. But the fact that all the examples are zero level bullshit in no way implies that you are also entitled to get high level awesome powers as well. There totally supernatural and spell-like abilities that are zero level bullshit, Gnomes get some for example.

There simply is no serious argument that magic immunity or at-will Gate are in any way in line with the examples.

The "it says abilities and magic immunity is an ability" argument is so absurd that it wouldn't merit a response if it wsn't for the fact that people keep making it. For fuck's sake, the book doesn't even say the sarrukh gets to choose at all - let alone tell you what list you'd be able to choose from if you were allowed to do that in the first place.

Literally one hundred percent of the description of what is allowed or forbidden is the example list. And the example list is exclusively composed of zero level bullshit. Which of course means that you can do Pun Pun shit, you just can't rely on a rules as written argument. You "just" have to convince your DM that whatever crazy high level power you want is "basically like" the zero level bullshit in the examples.

Which is only slightly more implausible than arguing that you should be able to use Change Self as an area of effect save or lose by assuming the appearance of a Nymph, Mummy, or Dragon. Well, it's a lot more implausible than that, but it has just as much reason to be seriously discussed on charop forums.

-Username17

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:04 pm

What irks me about the sarrukh's ability is that it's completely open in scope. The Pun Pun writers make you believe that that ability means "it gives you any published ability" but the text doesn't say that. It says "any".

So I can bypass the whole needless complex Pun-pun creation by having my familiar to become a Sarrukh and granting me abilities like "Immunity to negative conditions, including Death (Ex)", "Has 10 extra partial actions per round (Ex)", "Gains a bonus on Caster Level equals to the largest HD in a 50 mile radius +10 (Su)".

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:10 pm

nockermensch wrote:What irks me about the sarrukh's ability is that it's completely open in scope. The Pun Pun writers make you believe that that ability means "it gives you any published ability" but the text doesn't say that. It says "any".

So I can bypass the whole needless complex Pun-pun creation by having my familiar to become a Sarrukh and granting me abilities like "Immunity to negative conditions, including Death (Ex)", "Has 10 extra partial actions per round (Ex)", "Gains a bonus on Caster Level equals to the largest HD in a 50 mile radius +10 (Su)".

They actually don't. At least in the original version, they state that the ability allows them to write anything they want on the character sheet, but since that's too crazy even for them they'll restrict themselves to published abilities.

The examples aren't previously published abilities in the first place.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:49 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Lokathor wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The Sarrukh doesn't actually give you divine ranks or even Golem magic immunity. It just... doesn't do that. That's not what the power means, but very crucially that's not even what it says.
"A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it."

Golem magic immunity is a plain old extraordinary ability, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to grant it. Sure you can't give Divine Ranks, but other Ex, Su, and Sp abilities are all fair game.
There are fucking examples of how it works on the next fucking page. It doesn't specifically say you can't grant Golem Magic Immunity, but it doesn't say you can either. There are no caveats, exclusions, or inclusions. All there is is a list of examples of how it works. Which means that if you want to grab at-will Gate or Magic Immunity or something, all you have to do is make a convincing argument that those abilities are in line with the examples of giving a +2 bonus to climb or whatever.

It's nothing but wishful thinking. A variable wasn't defined terribly well and some assholes claimed that they could put infinity in because it didn't say they couldn't. It's exactly like the argument that because the longsword in the PHB doesn't say how many Red Dragons you can summon with it as a free action that you are free to assume the number is seven.

-Username17

It's more like if you has a +1 Longsword of Summoning whose rule text states "The wielder may summon a number of creatures" and then a list of examples gives summoning 1 cat or 6 frogs and the player argues that he can summon 10,000 Balors since Balors are creatures and 10,000 is a number.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 4:39 pm

It doesn't say "any" it says "an." Then it goves a short and shitty list. The idea that you could pick from other lists or pick abilities that other creatures have has no basis in the rules and is one hundred percent head canon. In fact, even the idea that you'd get to choose at all rather than get one handed to you arbitrarily is also completely made up.

I think that PunPun has been so successful as a meme because it's not actually supported by the rules. The Wish is totally legal and completely explicit in the rules, but it's complex. It's several page citations in several books and requires comparisons of list entries. People don't want to follow a logic trail that long, and want something simple.

-Username17

GreatGreyShrike · Post by **GreatGreyShrike** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:37 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: I think that PunPun has been so successful as a meme because it's not actually supported by the rules. The Wish is totally legal and completely explicit in the rules, but it's complex. It's several page citations in several books and requires comparisons of list entries. People don't want to follow a logic trail that long, and want something simple.

If I had to guess about the reason for the disparity in the Wish vs Pun Pun in popularity and people upholding it as an example of rules working poorly, it would have to do with how core the rules are to the game. With Pun Pun, you can write Serpent Kingdoms off as an obscure and bad sourcebook and the Sarrukhs and their ability just a manifestation of that; you can believe internally that it says little about the quality of the game as a whole, and it's easy to ignore that problem with the rules.

Conversely, compare a lot of problems the Den has discussed in 3/3.5: they are things like "Using Wish using any of the ways to avoid it's costs is clearly broken", things like "Using planar binding and gate spells as intended is pretty broken, and using them as unintended is super broken" and finally "Using polymorph or other polymorph-like effects is both confusing and super broken". These things reflect badly on the game a lot more, as they are part of the core rules and are written to happen to basically every game that tries to interact with these rules.

With pun-pun there is a sense of "look at how poorly written this random ability written up for a fairly obscure sourcebook probably by a nonentity like Boyd or Drader", and it's existence as a problematic rule doesn't feel like an attack on the game, whereas the problematic spells in core are much more likely inspire people to think "I like 3e/3.5e so anything demonstrating that there are problems inherent to that ruleset must be an attack on the core rules and therefore *must* be wrong!" or the like.

Not many people have any ego invested in the idea that Serpent Kingdoms is a good product that doesn't contain huge flaws. 3/3.5 core rules are different...

spongeknight · Post by **spongeknight** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:51 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:I think that PunPun has been so successful as a meme because it's not actually supported by the rules. The Wish is totally legal and completely explicit in the rules, but it's complex. It's several page citations in several books and requires comparisons of list entries. People don't want to follow a logic trail that long, and want something simple.

-Username17

Nah, it's simpler than that. While the Wish or the Word can steamroll "appropriate" challenges and break the game in half, Pun-Pun is theoretically infinite in power. It has infinite stats, all the spells ever printed and every spell that could exist through spell research, every ability ever printed, immunity from everything, infinite knowledge, ect. It's supposed to be the answer to "what is the most powerful thing possible to create as a player." So even if it doesn't really work, people are coming at this from the player's angle to begin with, so they're much more likely to squint and argue that it could totally work if the MC wasn't being such a buzzkill, man.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:30 pm

Hmm? I don't have Serpent Kingdom in front of me right now, but as I recall Manipulate Form was pretty explicit about what it could and could not do, and one of those things was permanently adding any extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability. That covers an insane amount of ground, and if you can't find some sort of infinite combo amongst the chaos of almost all abilities ever then you aren't trying.

I do say almost all abilities, because some aren't Ex, Su, or Sp. For example, the Weapon and Armor Proficiency or Spells class abilities of many classes. Salient divine abilities aren't marked as Ex, Su, or Sp, and though they share some traits with feats, they aren't feats. Whoever tried to argue that Manipulate Form could add salient divine abilities was both stupid and lazy.

Now, all of that is dancing around the fact that Manipulate Form is unusable in any reasonable context. Players should never have it as it is a blank-check without even the laughable restrictions of Wish, and a DM can just handwave in Deep Dark Unspeakable Snake-God Rituals if he wants Sarrukh to create new species as part of a plot. I don't know why it was printed. Not all fluff has to have crunch.

---

Also, I have to comment that I have always liked the "campaign smasher" builds that were useless for actual play. It was an interesting meta-game, looking for the most ridiculous loopholes and exploits. You could never ever use them in play, but it didn't matter because the search and building aspects by themselves were fun. I would like to say that serious posters kept to the rules, but the truth is I tuned out of CharOp long before the 4pocalypse. I don't know what they got up at the end there.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:52 pm

Frankly, I don't think the interpretation of Manipulate Form that allows Pun-Pun is really different from the interpretation of Wish that allows The Wish from:

Even wish, however, has its limits.

A wish can produce any one of the following effects.

Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value.
Create a magic item, or add to the powers of an existing magic item.
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit (either the attack roll or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save, and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.

You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)

A Ring Of Infinite Wishes is obviously more powerful than anything else on that list, and the text doesn't say "any" magic item. I've tracked down a picture of the Manipulate Form entry from a previous argument, and actually it has a list of physical alterations it can grant and zero examples of Extraordinary, Supernatural, or Spell-like abilities. So if the examples of things which are not magic items in Wish do not constrain the magic items, the examples of things which are not abilities in Manipulate Form do not constrain the abilities. If the lack of any examples for abilities in Manipulate Form means it can't grant any at all, then the lack of examples for magic items in Wish means it cannot create any magic items.

Obviously it's not supposed to yield infinite power, and no sane DM would permit that, but it's under RAW just as much as The Wish.

Well, the stuff after getting Manipulate Form is. I'm not sure about the builds getting to the point of putting it on two creatures who are not immune to it.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:00 pm

Pixels wrote:Hmm? I don't have Serpent Kingdom in front of me right now, but as I recall Manipulate Form was pretty explicit about what it could and could not do, and one of those things was permanently adding any extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability.

Well, your memory is fucking wrong because it very much doesn't say that and never ever did. Now, I don't fault your memory because you've probably read rants by PunPun enthusiasts over a hundred thousand percent more times than you've read fucking Serpent Kingdoms, but the fact is that no such explicit (or even implicit) guaranty was every made.

Here, I'll give you the entire relevant paragraph:

Sarrukh Description wrote:A sarrukh may use this ability to change a minor aspect of the target creature, such as the shape of its head or the color of its scales. It may also choose to make a much more significant alteration, such as converting limbs into tentacles, changing overall body shape (snake to humanoid, for example), or adding or removing an appendage. Any ability score may be decreased to a minimum of 1 or increased to a maximum equal to the sarrukh's corresponding score. A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it.
...
Typical physical alterations that sarrukh often bestow with this ability include the following:

What follows is a long ass list of bullshit zero level abilities. Like getting +4 to spot checks and increased movement rate and shit. And that's all it explicitly does. And all it implicitly does: give minor bonuses and bullshit abilities you don't care about.

The only broken thing that Manipulate Form does explicitly is to give you a size-changing stat-ratchet whereby two Sarrukhs can grow and shrink themselves while resetting their Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores at key points in the process in order to spend a few months raising all three of their physical stats to very very high numbers. That's a real thing it can do, and it's really explicit, and it's slower and less impressive than the Artificer skill dance even while applying to less things.

Really. That's all it does. That's all it has ever done.

This is basically the beginning and the end of the argument in favor of Pun Pun. It's all it has ever been.

And it says a lot about D&D charop forums that this bullshit was ever seriously discussed, let alone that it has been generally accepted and even given its own Urban Dictionary entry.

-Username17

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:07 pm

name here wrote:A Ring Of Infinite Wishes is obviously more powerful than anything else on that list, and the text doesn't say "any" magic item.

Uh... true. But it does say:

PHB, p. 302 wrote:When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP.

You elected to edit that part out, and it really does change the meaning considerably.

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:28 pm

Well, I left that part out because I don't think it's actually relevant. Yes, it tells you how the cost is assigned, but it doesn't say anything whatsoever about what items you can do it with. It doesn't even put in an XP cap that would allow you to declare that it means any item below that cap, like it does with nonmagical items.